Sections
Glossary
Glossary
- break-even
- when fusion power produced equals the heating power input
- breeder reactors
- reactors that are designed specifically to make plutonium
- breeding
- reaction process that produces 239Pu
- critical mass
- minimum amount necessary for self-sustained fission of a given nuclide
- criticality
- condition in which a chain reaction easily becomes self-sustaining
- fission fragments
- a daughter nuclei
- food irradiation
- treatment of food with ionizing radiation
- free radicals
- ions with unstable oxygen- or hydrogen-containing molecules
- gray (Gy)
- the SI unit for radiation dose which is defined to be
- high dose
- a dose greater than 1 Sv (100 rem)
- hormesis
- a term used to describe generally favorable biological responses to low exposures of toxins or radiation
- ignition
- when a fusion reaction produces enough energy to be self-sustaining after external energy input is cut off
- inertial confinement
- a technique that aims multiple lasers at tiny fuel pellets evaporating and crushing them to high density
- linear hypothesis
- assumption that risk is directly proportional to risk from high doses
- liquid drop model
- a model of nucleus (only to understand some of its features) in which nucleons in a nucleus act like atoms in a drop
- low dose
- a dose less than 100 mSv (10 rem)
- magnetic confinement
- a technique in which charged particles are trapped in a small region because of difficulty in crossing magnetic field lines
- moderate dose
- a dose from 0.1 Sv to 1 Sv (10 to 100 rem)
- neutron-induced fission
- fission that is initiated after the absorption of neutron
- nuclear fission
- reaction in which a nucleus splits
- nuclear fusion
- a reaction in which two nuclei are combined, or fused, to form a larger nucleus
- proton-proton cycle
- the combined reactions 1H+1H→2H+e++ve, 1H+2H→3He+γ, and 3He+3He→4He+1H+1H
- quality factor
- same as relative biological effectiveness
- rad
- the ionizing energy deposited per kilogram of tissue
- radiolytic products
- compounds produced due to chemical reactions of free radicals
- radiotherapy
- the use of ionizing radiation to treat ailments
- relative biological effectiveness (RBE)
- a number that expresses the relative amount of damage that a fixed amount of ionizing radiation of a given type can inflict on biological tissues
- roentgen equivalent man (rem)
- a dose unit more closely related to effects in biological tissue
- shielding
- a technique to limit radiation exposure
- sievert
- the SI equivalent of the rem
- supercriticality
- an exponential increase in fissions
- therapeutic ratio
- the ratio of abnormal cells killed to normal cells killed